Living, learning and loving in Lyon !

Théâtre et Musée Gallo-Romain de Lyon

I love exploring the cultural side of Lyon. Sim – not so much!

So at school one Wednesday, when we found out that we had an 8am start on the Thursday for an excursion to Fourvière and the Musée Gallo-Romain, outwardly I groaned with the rest of the class, but my inner dork was gleefully thinking, ‘Woot! Excursion! Museum!’

The museum and theatre are up on Fourvière Hill, and were once the centre of the Roman town Lugdunum – today’s Lyon. I’d been to the theatre a few times (they have an excellent summer music festival called Les Nuits de Fourvière), and wondered what the windows in the hill were. Turns out, it’s the museum!

View from the theatre. Note the windows in the hill!

And voila! View from the window!

The whole site is excellent. The theatre is thought to have been built around 15BC, but the museum’s just a bit newer, built in 1975. It houses a fabulous architectual collection, and traces the history of Lyon up until the 7th century. Even better – the descriptive plaques at each exhibit are in French and English!

And, after a few métro adventures, we also discovered that the international students know their way around Lyon’s historic hot spots better than the teachers! Tourists much?